


Nick’s Adventures Through Johto and Kanto: A Nuzlocke Journal

by Blutstrom



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: HeartGold & SoulSilver | Pokemon HeartGold & SoulSilver Versions
Genre: Also a self insert to give myself a bit more creative freedom, Gen, I am prepared for deaths but frankly I doubt that will help, Mild Language, That major character death thing is more preemptive than anything, This a nuzlocke
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-30 22:33:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21435778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blutstrom/pseuds/Blutstrom
Summary: I started a SoulSilver nuzlocke run and thought, you know what? I'm not enough of an artist to draw a comic of this and I don't have the proper setup to record a Let's Play, but I really want to document this somehow so here's a self-insert nuzlocke run because I thought it would be fun.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	1. The First Step

I’d been tidying up my room a bit when I noticed a card on my desk. It was my Trainer ID. I smiled fondly as I remembered the exam I had to take for it, about the only test I’d ever been excited to take, and the subsequent adventures after-... Wait.

Oh yeah I never actually went on that journey did I? Stuff kept coming up, excuses were made and the next thing I knew, ten years had passed. _ Should probably get on that at some point, huh? _ I thought to myself. Ah well, no time like the present. I swiped my ID off the desk and slipped it into my wallet before finding an old backpack that had more than enough pockets for a journey like this. 

Next were the right clothes; some comfortable jeans - I slipped my wallet and my phone into the pockets - and a black T-shirt sufficed, and a pair of hiking boots - actually nah, those should probably go in the bag in case I ever need to start running. I put on a pair of tennis shoes and tied an old hoodie around my waist. A short top hat I bought at a festival a while back a spinning ring on my left middle finger completed the ensemble. The ring also happened to be a fantastic fidget toy.

I made my way downstairs and was quickly intercepted by best friend/brother/housemate’s Houndour, Temper. He always liked a good ear scratch and I was always happy to oblige. Speaking of my friend, Cole turned his head when I came downstairs and took in my appearance. His eyebrow raised.

“You going somewhere?” He asked.

“Figured it was about time I did the whole cross-regional journey thing. I mean I have the ID and everything,” I replied.

“Oh the Journey, you mean that thing you’re supposed to do when you’re 10 and give up half-way when you realize everyone’s older and better than you?” Cole asked, only half jokingly as he let out a chuckle.

“That’s the one, you need anything while I’m in Kanto?” I said, making my way to the kitchen to look for snacks to fill my bag.

“You’re going all the way to Kanto to do this? Why not just do it in Johto? You know, the region you actually live in.”

“I mean they put in that cross-regional train line, why not cover two regions in one go?” I said with a shrug.

“... This isn’t some mid-life crisis thing is it?” He asked, again only half joking.

“Ha. Ha. Very funny, I’m twenty, not 45,” I replied, “But seriously you need anything? I’m pretty sure the mail service will let me send anything short of a legendary.”

“Nah, but thanks though. Hey before I forget, your watch thing got back from the repair shop, it’s on the counter. Also Professor Elm came by a bit ago, said he needed your help with something.”

“Uh huh,” I said checking over my Pokegear to make sure the repair shop hadn’t deleted anything. Nope, good I still had all my contact and my map. I had the radio card but I never really used it, “And you couldn’t help him out with this because…?”

“Didn’t want to,” Cole said, petting Temper as the Houndour crawled into his lap.

“Yeah that’s about what I figured. Alright, I’ll be back a bit later.”

“You know what Pokemon you’re gonna pick for your partner?”

“Yeah, I’m thinking I’ll go with the Totodile. I’ll think up a name after I actually meet it.”

“Noice. Call me when you get to the first Gym and send me a pic of any cool Bug-types you see. Or Water-types. Or-”

“Yeah, I get it, I’ll send a picture of anything and everything cool I see, specifically the bugs, fish, and birds.”

“See, you get me,” he said with a smile, before a more serious expression crossed his face, “Hey you remember the rules right?”

“Yes, I remember the rules, one catch per area, name all of them, I got this,” I don’t actually know why those rules are in place, I mean the naming thing just makes sense, but the one catch per area thing was always a little weird to me. But of course, rules are rules. My personal theory was that Arceus or Mew decided it would be funny if humanity collectively followed these two specific rules all the time and just never decided to rescind it.

As I walked outside, I was dragged from my musings when a familiar Marill bumped into my leg. And right on cue, the little bubble mouse’s trainer Lyra came running up. She was one of the younger kids in town, and also easily the most energetic, always running around playing with her Marill. She looked at me and smiled a gap-tooth grin.

“Hey, Mr. Nick! Where’re you off to?” She asked.

“Well first I’m gonna help the Professor with something and then I’m gonna head out for a while. Might be gone a few weeks.”

“A few weeks?!” She gasped, before her eyes widened in realization and excitement, _ “Are you going on the Pokémon Journey?!” _ She yell-whispered in the way only a kid can really pull off.

“Yes, I am,” I said with a smile of my own. Lyra almost seemed to explode in excitement as I was immediately flooded with questions.

“THAT’S SO COOL!!! Have you picked your partner yet? Are you going to fight all the Gym Leaders, Which one are you doing first? Ooh, CAN I COME WITH YOU?!” Her eyes were sparkling with each question.

“Yes, yes, whichever one is closest, and sorry but no. Aside from any Pokemon I catch I’m mostly planning on doing this alone,” Let it never be said I’m not used to this kid.

“Aww,” She groaned, kicking the dust before her eyes lit up again, “Wait _ I _ can go on a Pokemon journey by myself! I got my Trainer ID last week! Marill come on we gotta go pack!” And with that she sped off back to her house, the Pokemon hot on her heels. I shook my head fondly and made my way over to Professor Elm’s lab. I almost stopped when I saw a red haired boy standing outside the lab, but frankly I didn’t feel it was any of my business, so I just walked inside.

“Ah, Nick! Good to see you my boy!” Professor Elm greeted me as soon as he laid eyes on me, “How have you been?”

“Been alright Professor, but what about you? Cole said you needed me for something?”

“Ah yes, I do! You see my old friend, who I think you may know as Mr. Pokemon-”

“The guy who lives in the woods by Cherrygrove City?”

“The very same. You see he called me earlier and said he’d made a fantastic discovery! Now, knowing him it’s probably another Egg he can’t identify and would like me to take a look at, but it could still be rather important.”

“So you want me to go pick it up for you, I’m guessing?”

“Ah, you were always quick on the uptake! Yes, if you would please take a look at these Pokeballs to your right, I’d very much like it if you would select a partner Pokemon to take with you. It can be very dangerous out there in the wild after all.”

“Oh yeah, I’m sure all the Pidgey, Sentrets, and Weedles are just waiting to tear me apart Professor,” I said sarcastically, making my way over to the balls.

“And Kakuna! Don’t forget about the Kakuna! Crafty little buggers, always hardening their skin no matter what you throw at them.”

“From what I understand, doesn’t that make them easier to catch?” I asked, picking up one of the Pokeballs.

“Well yes but that doesn’t you can let your guard down- Oh! Have you made your decision already?”

“Yes sir I have,” I said tossing out the ball and releasing the two foot tall blue Totodile. The Pokemon stared at me before letting out what I can only describe as a cross between a hiss and a yip before waving at me and tugging at the sleeves of my hoodie. I stared at the Pokemon for a moment before picking him up and placing him on my shoulder, careful to avoid the brim of my hat.

“I’m gonna call you Stevie. Come on, we got an errand to run before we get our adventure well and truly started," Stevie let out another hiss-yip and settled in on my shoulder, ready to hit the road.


	2. The Team Begins to Form

Well that had been… Something. It wasn’t really that bad of a walk; like I told the Professor, the woods around New Bark Town aren’t exactly known for dangerous high level Pokemon. Still, having a Pokemon of my own certainly made the trip easier. Speaking of, I couldn’t help but notice Stevie was a lot calmer than expected. I’d always been under the impression that Totodiles were rambunctious and energetic, but this one seemed content just walking behind me or riding my shoulder. Ah well, probably not a big deal.

Getting back on track, it seemed Professor Elm was right on the money, Mr. Pokemon did have a new Egg he wanted the Professor to study. Also I got to meet Professor Oak from Kanto which was… honestly pretty cool. Stevie seemed to like him so I took that as the glowing review it was and went on my way back to New Bark Town. On the way I ran into that red haired kid, and he immediately challenged me to a battle with his Chikorita. Stevie won pretty easily, mostly because I’m pretty sure the kid had done zero training with his Pokemon before battling, seeing as how the Chikorita didn’t have any Grass-type moves. After he lost, the boy stormed off to - I presume - the nearest Pokemon Center (No I didn’t have Stevie kill the Chikorita are you kidding me the kid just started). He dropped his Trainer ID, allowing me to see his name was Silver before he snatched it out of my hand. Rude kid, but again not my business. I made the rest of the way to New Bark Town to deliver the Egg, and finally Stevie and I were ready to head out on our journey.

Or we would be, as soon as I was done talking to Lyra, seeing as how she stopped me right outside of town.

“Mr. Nick, hi!” She waved at me, her Marill copying her movements, “Your Totodile is so cute! Hey, have you caught any Pokemon yet? Do you know how to?” And there were the rapid-fire questions.

“No, Lyra I-” I was going to tell her that I hadn’t bought any Pokeballs yet, but she barrelled right over me, her eyes sparkling.

“Oh! Oh oh oh! Do you want me to teach you?! Here, follow me!” And with that she grabbed my wrist and dragged me over to the nearest patch of grass. Obviously, I already knew how to catch a Pokemon, but Lyra was so intent on “teaching” me that I didn’t have the heart to do much of anything besides lean against a tree and watch her fight a wild Sentret. Stevie was content to roll around in the grass while we waited.

Not even a minute later, Lyra triumphantly help her new catch in her hand and walked over to me, “Didya see? Did I go too fast, should I start over?”

“No, thank you Lyra but that won’t be necessary. I saw everything. Though if you don't mind my saying, one Tackle isn’t always gonna net you a catch.”

“Well yeah I know _ that,” _ She said just a tad petulantly, “I just didn’t want to risk, you know… killing it. My Marill’s really strong you know!” Said bubble mouse puffed his chest out proudly. Or, I’m pretty sure that was his chest, it’s kinda hard to tell with such a perfectly spherical Pokemon.

“I’m sure he is, now if you don’t mind, I need to go to the store and pick up some Pokeballs. Gotta use those tips of yours somehow!”

“Oh, you need Pokeballs? Here you go!” She handed me five Pokeballs from her bag, “My mom gave me too many. Bye now, see you later Mr. Nick!” And with that, she skipped off into the woods. Sweet kid. And thanks to her, I was now able to start my Journey in earnest. A few minutes of walking through the grass led to me meeting a young Pidgey, eager to fight. Two Scratches from Stevie later, and Gunderson was officially part of the team. She perched on the brim of my hat when not battling, and also was apparently really combative even before I met her, considering it seemed every Sentret on that route was out for her blood. 

While training Gunderson, a thought suddenly occurred to me: I had forgotten to tell a few of my friends about my Journey. Fishing my phone out of my pocket, I opened the messaging app and pulled up two conversations, one with my friend Em, who I’ve known since we were like 13 or 14, and Nikolas (affectionately called Rat to avoid confusion of names) who lived in the Fiore region. I took a selfie with Gunderson on my hat and Stevie on my shoulder and sent it to them both.

**Image sent!**

**Me: Hey I’m doing the cross-regional trip thing with deadly monsters.**

**Em: Sweet, have fun with that.**

**Rat: !!!!!! gimmie gimmie gimmie i want pics and names of the babeys or i’m sending you pictures of that one time i got a pokeball stuck in my mouth trying to prove i could fit the whole thing in there**

**Rat: don’t test me, i’ll vore your firstborn**

Rat can be excitable when given the proper motivation, which really isn’t that hard to provide. Smiling to myself, I took several pictures of Stevie and Gunderson, labelled them and sent them his way.

**Rat: KJSBOASDBAIBIBNABFVOUABFAIBPOIUR THEY’RE SO CUTE!!!!!**

Mostly out of curiosity for her reaction, I sent the same images to Em.

**Em: Nice, they’ll both grown into powerful hunters one day.**

Yeah, that’s about what I expected. My phone pinged again with another load of messages from Rat, I’d have to check them after I caught something on Route 46. I was _ really _ hoping for a Geodude, because I’d heard some legitimate horror stories about a certain Gym leader and her rolling cow. After a bit of walking in the grass, I ran into my catch of that route. It was unfortunately not a Geodude. I sighed, and cursed under my breath.

_ Well, _ I thought as Gunderson squared up to fight, _ at least Rat’ll get a kick out of this. _

After a successful catch, I held my newest addition in my arms and sent a selfie to Rat, catching up on the messages he sent while I waited.

**Rat: hey**

**Rat: hey you there?**

**Rat: you catch anything else cool yet?**

**Rat: come ooonnnnnn don’t leave me hanging like this i wanna SEE THEM there’s barely any variety in fiore!!!!! It’s so damn tiny here that natural selection or whatever didn’t produce any interesting species!!!! We just have the defaults and a metric ton of ghost types because nobody ever l e a v e s and they all stay here as g h o s t po k e m o n nn n nn**

**Rat: especially since they know people will try to catch em anywhere else**

**Rat: ew imagine being caught in a pokeball and put in a pc for your whole afterlife**

**Rat: i’ll never understand why y’all use pokeballs still when capture stylers are so much more humane**

Rat would make an excellent addition to the Pokemon Rangers after he finishes his training. But in the meantime...

**Image sent!**

**Rat: is**

**Rat: is that a fucken rattata?**

**Rat: is that a fucken rattata named ** ** _Ratbitch?!?!?!?!_ **

**Me: Indeed he is.**

**Rat: DUDE**

**Rat: DUDE YOU FOUND MY FUCKEN POKESONA!!!!!!**

**Me: Well damn, now I have to make sure he lives.**

**Rat: ** ** _you bet your ass you have to_ **

I laughed at my friend’s antics, and sent the picture of Ratbitch to Em.

**Me: I did not get a Geodude.**

**Em: Well there goes your chance for a physical wall. But hey, at least Ratbitch can learn Super Fang and Hyper Fang.**

**Em: And if you can get your hands on a Focus Sash, you can use the F.E.A.R. strategy.**

**Me: True. Well I’m about to hit up Route 30 for some training, I’ll text you if anything comes up, but I'm honestly not too worried. It's mostly Weedles and Pidgies on that route.**

* * *

  
  


Note to self: _ don’t jinx yourself like that ever again, you moron. _

Good news, I caught a Weedle and named it HM Bug (Hey, I’m not about to lie to anyone about their position on this team). Bad news, the little Ekans bait was able to get off enough Poison Stings that Stevie was now in legitimate danger. I pulled out my phone to text Em, clutching Stevie to my chest with my other arm.

**Me: Time sensitive question: how long can a Totodile survive a poisoning?**

**Em: Two questions; do you have any potions, and where’s the nearest Center?**

**Me: I have 3, and right around the corner, I’m just outside Cherrygrove.**

**Em: If you hurry, he’ll be fine but I’d start moving now if I were you.**

I took her advice to heart. I had to spray Stevie once with a Potion right outside the Pokemon Center, but I was able to safely get him to Nurse Joy to cure his poisoning. I thanked her, and went back outside, hoping to train up HM Bug a little bit so he’d actually be able to use HM’s. Hopefully, seeing as how he’s a Bug-type it shouldn’t take too long to train and evolve him. A few hours at the most.

* * *

  
  
  


A day. It took all. Arceus-damned. _ Day. _ To train the Weedle into a Beedrill which, granted, wasn’t entirely his fault or mine, it just so happened that I couldn’t take him anywhere passed Route 30 because he frankly had the constitution of wet tissue paper as a Weedle. And there weren’t a lot of other trainers on the route - just two kids with Rattatas, one of which tried to give me his phone number, to which I politely declined - so the training had to be done the slow and safe way of starting with HM Bug out front and switching to Gunderson or Ratbitch so they could get some training in too.

In lighter news, after evolving HM Bug into a Kakuna, I caught a Hoothoot on Route 31 and named her Athena, because I’m incredibly original. Luckily she already knows Hypnosis, so catching wild Pokemon should hopefully be a bit easier from now on.

And now, finally here I stand in Violet City, home to the first Gym I have to beat. From asking around, I know the Leader’s name is Falkner, and that he specializes in Flying-types, which is a bit of a concern given my current lineup. But I have heard that I can find Mareep in the grass to the South of the city, so I suppose I’ll try my luck there after some shut-eye in the Pokemon Center. 

As I lay on the couch, my team surrounding me also starting to drift off, I couldn’t help but feel a bit anxious about the coming battle. I could only hope we were ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Current Team:  
Stevie - Totodile, Calm  
Gunderson - Pidgey, Quirky  
Ratbitch - Rattata, Modest  
HM Bug - Beedrill, Jolly  
Athena - Hoothoot, Quiet
> 
> I'm sorry these first few chapters are so short, but I'm trying to skim over all the long grinding sessions that really just boil down to "And then Stevie/Gunderson/Ratbitch killed another Sentret" I hope you guys understand. Hopefully the actual Gym battles will be more entertaining and easier to stretch out without being boring.
> 
> Till then, see y'all next time in Sprout Tower.
> 
> P.S. All of those text conversations actually happened, with only minor tweaks to make them fit in universe

**Author's Note:**

> And so we begin! I hope you all enjoy this, it's kinda fun for me to not have to write anything serious and making stuff up as it happens to me. Read, rate, leave a comment, leave some kudos, you know the drill. If the response to this is good I'm thinking of making a Discord server for it, so leave an opinion on that too. See y'all next time.


End file.
